The Reason You’re Not Winning More New Logos

This post is for sales leaders struggling to make the new logo number. Many of you put a plan in place to focus on new logos this year. As the year has progressed, you realize it’s not working. The problem hasn’t been solved. Why not?

Reps often focus their efforts where they are most comfortable: existing customers. It’s 6-7 times easier to sell to an existing customer than a new one. Perhaps you’ve tried a few things to solve for this.

Re-organized the sales team to create hunter and farmer roles.

Set new logo quotas for your hunters.

Changed the comp plan to incentivize new logo wins.

Do You Have a New Logo Strategy or Just Tactics?

Your efforts haven’t solved the issue and you feel like your choices are limited. It’s possible you deployed tactics versus a strategy to pursue new logos. What does this mean?

In SBI’s annual report “How to Make Your Number in 2015,” this is a top reason why sales leaders miss the number.

When the sales strategy is just a compilation of tactics, the organization is reactive vs proactive. They may make the number one quarter, but miss the next. They are unable to make the number, every quarter unless they can systematize these tactics.

In SBI’s report, it defines 6 steps to a successful sales strategy. Here’s why you need to do all of them to successfully acquire new logos.

1. Segmentation: There are 3 types of segmentation:

Market: Breaking down broad markets into those with common needs and priorities.

Account: Knowing which accounts will generate the most revenue in the least amount of time.

Buyer: Understanding how buyers in those accounts make purchase decisions.

The report provides a definition and use for each. Segmentation allows you to uncover your best new logo opportunities. Skip this step and your sales team will thrash. All of their prospecting efforts will be guesswork.

2. Planning: Planning helps you put wood behind the arrow. Revenue planning helps define how you’ll achieve the new logo goal. A budget plan determines where and how to spend your investments. Data planning helps you identify what information you need to make decisions. Many plans assign an arbitrary number to new logos without applying this discipline. Often, it’s because segmentation was skipped, or was done poorly. How can you properly set expectations without this? And if you don’t do this step, how will you know if you’re on track?

3. Engagement: This helps you define the processes you’ll need to win new logo deals. Prospecting teaches your reps how to get into new accounts. Sales process ensures once they’re in, they can convert an opportunity to an order. Waste new logo at bats and the number will get out of reach quickly. If you skip the first two steps, Engagement becomes ineffective. Where should the reps prospect if you haven’t done Segmentation? How do you know you have enough people pursuing new logos without Planning?

4. Org: You have to properly organize to pursue new logos. Earlier, the hunter-farmer example was used. This is an example of an org model, but there are others. Product-based, Geo-based, stratification and social proximity are common ones. You might also consider using inside sales, or an indirect channel. Decide these items first, then focus on the type of talent you need in each role. You have to create territories, comp and quotas aligned to the new logo goals too. A lot of companies spend most of the time in this phase. It’s critical to get this right. The wrong people in the wrong jobs with the wrong incentives can be disastrous. Making these decisions without having the first 3 steps at your disposal is impossible. You’re making blind bets on new logo success.

5. Execution: This is where all your efforts begin to pay off. You’ve determined your new logo market. You’ve established your plan and budget. You’ve set up proper engagement processes. You’ve organized to make it happen. Now, implement the plan, drive adoption and allow your team to execute. Sales people execute best when there’s a clear plan in place.

6. Support: In order to keep the engine running, you need support systems. Sales ops, sales support and technology systems will keep you in the game. Many people make the mistake of doing this step first. They buy technology and systems to make sales more efficient. Technology is a tool that does what you tell it to do. If you’ve skipped steps 1-5, what will you tell your tools to do? Careful you don’t get ahead of yourself on this one. Technology won’t win you new customers.

What You Can Do to Improve New Logo Performance

Today, 78% of sales leaders are deploying an incorrect (or no) sales strategy. When it comes to new logos, simply deploying tactics won’t work. It’s too hard and will take too long.

Ryan Tognazzini

Works closely with B2B companies to solve strategic business problems so that they will make their number.

Learn more about Ryan Tognazzini >

Ryan joined SBI in 2010 as a Senior Consultant. Since then, he has worked extensively with emerging growth technology companies, including SaaS, enterprise software, systems integrators and OEMs. Additionally, Ryan works alongside numerous private equity investors, performing both sales and marketing due diligence and organic growth initiatives inside their portfolio companies.

Among a long list of accomplishments, he developed and implemented a sales and marketing strategy that resulted in the turnaround of a $1B IT integration clients. He executed organic growth initiatives to help a $100M software company achieve 40%+ year-over-year growth in preparation for an IPO. And he worked with a $1B enterprise software client to transform their sales and marketing go-to-market strategy for their cloud and SaaS offerings. Not surprisingly, in 2014 he was voted SBI Employee of the Year by his peers.

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